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What do a CEO, a do-good optimist, and a comic book author have in common? Just ask Seth Goldman, co-founder and president of Honest Tea – he is all three.

Seth Goldman, Co-founder, President and TeaEO of Honest Tea

An entrepreneur with a mission, Seth is a long-time member of Net Impact, the network that is revolutionizing the business world with over 40,000 change agents committed to social responsibility. He now serves on its advisory board, as well as the boards of several other organizations, including Bethesda Green a Maryland-based green business incubator which he founded in 2008.

Unlike most of his peers in the beverage industry, Seth holds his company to a high standard of environmental sustainability and partners with NGOs and community-based suppliers to work toward this ideal. His commitment to staying socially responsible is so strong that he has even occasionally fought against parent company Coca Cola to keep his label's integrity.

I sat down with Seth to talk about his radical mission and his take on net impact.

JK: What does Net Impact mean to you?

SG: The annual Net Impact Conference is by far the most inspirational, motivating event I go to every year. It gives me the most optimism about the future of the world. I see so many passionate people who are gaining the skills to make real change happen. They are serious about it. I’ve been to many gatherings of idealists. I have never been to gatherings that lack passion, but plenty that lack roadmaps.

Before the national service program launched, I went to the national gathering in 1993; there was passion and some anger, but no sense of what it would take to make change happen. That was one of the things that made me want to go to business school – so I could learn how to get things done. Net Impact grads are becoming part of the network to make change happen. It’s where you meet the switching station.

I’m not a big networker, but so much of what enabled me to build Honest Tea came from the Net Impact network. My board members and my first internship at the Calvert Group were through Net Impact. It’s a very tangible benefit. Most directly, we have hired Net Impact interns every year to help build the business. Those interns are very much a part of our staffing strategy. The power of community: first as a student, then as an entrepreneur, there is a large Net Impact community growing. It was re-enforcing to come into a community of like-minded people who wanted to make a difference. Then, of course, joining the Net Impact board.

JK: What does impact mean for Honest Tea?

SG: For us, it’s about offering drinks with less sugar. Most of the drinks on the market in 1998 had well over 100 calories. We started offering drinks closer to the 17-calorie range. Then, as we grew, we became the first to offer organic bottled tea. That was a step to helping address environmental concerns and to offer consumers a chance to drink beverages without chemicals. Then, we introduced fair trade tea. This was the first Fair Trade Certified™ bottled tea. So we have those three components of our mission and other elements of the way we market the teas and the packaging…in every aspect of what we do, we seek to incorporate our mission. We also have a mission report that assesses how well we are living up to our mission.

One of the things we talk about is democratizing organics – making lower-sugar, sustainably grown products available to more people. Our products are now carried in over 100,000 stores around the country.

JK: How many customers do you reach?

SG: We sell about 10 million cases, or 140 million units. Each one isn’t sold to an individual, but to approximately 20 million consumers.

Consumers come at it from all angles. Some are buying to have a healthier diet; others are trying to be fair trade consumers.

At the next level, I can reach up to 10,000 through work and through public speaking.

We reach many more when you include consumers - both people we sell to and people who are affected by our model, including other corporations, the tea-growing community, the Fair Trade community, environmental ecosystems, and whatever extent organics spread. The number of people we reach this way starts to get into the tens of millions.

In 2013, my co-founder, Barry Nalebuff, and I have a book coming out, which will expand our reach even further. I think anyone who reads our story will become more deeply invested in our model. It’s a comic book, Mission in a Bottle, to be published in September.